This is how a person works that he wants to believe in the existence of secret treasures, innumerable treasures. Here is the first World War with the revolutions that followed it gave rise to the legend of the so-called Kolchak's gold - part of the gold reserves of tsarist Russia.
It was found that in May 1919, 505 tons of gold worth 650 million rubles were concentrated in the Omsk storerooms of a local bank. did not squander the royal gold. There is information that he spent 68 million rubles on the maintenance of the army. On the security of gold for 128 million rubles, loans were received.
The legionnaires from the Czechoslovak corps, bogged down in Russia, understood that nothing good awaited them here, and they had to think about returning home. In their hands was Kolchak, whom they forced to sign a paper on the renunciation of the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia. Kolchak was handed over by the Legionnaires to the Social Revolutionaries, who ceded the Admiral to the Bolsheviks. Gold worth 409 million rubles was handed over to the Bolsheviks in exchange for the opportunity to freely leave Russia. From the certificate of the People's Commissariat of Finance, it followed that during the stay of gold under the command of Kolchak, it decreased by 235.6 million rubles. Where 39.6 million disappeared, one can only guess. It can be assumed that, sensing the end of his power, the admiral distributed some of the gold to his associates, officers of the tsarist army, so that they could flee abroad.
Or maybe the legionnaires from the Czechoslovak Corps “grabbed” the gold when they accompanied the train with gold to hand over to the Bolsheviks, so that they would not return home empty-handed.
Either the people's commissar "miscalculated" slightly, or the supreme ruler hid some of the precious metal in advance for a "rainy day". Where the gold went, no one will answer this question. The version that gold is hidden somewhere still gives rise to legends, excites the minds of treasure hunters, although 100 years have passed. They searched for gold under Stalin, they searched after. And they continue to search now.
In favor of the theft of gold by the Czechs, says the birth of Legiabank - financial institution organized by legionnaires. Another fact that speaks in favor of this version is the charity of Czechoslovakia in providing assistance to Russian emigrants.
Other versions say that the royal gold, which ended up in the hands of the Supreme Leader, was not exported anywhere, but remained hidden in Siberia. It has been suggested that the treasure was buried near the Maryina Griva lock, near the canal that connected the Ob with the Yenisei. Near this gateway, a mass grave of 500 White Guards was discovered.
Together with the gateway, the Sikhote-Alin mountains were named among the versions. There were rumors that people found gold bars in the caves of these mountains. There was also such a version that Kolchak's gold was hidden in Kazakhstan in the vicinity of the village of Aiyrtau. After all, for some reason, a Russian admiral came to a village forgotten by God. This fact is confirmed by the results of the latest interrogations of Alexander Vasilyevich by the Bolsheviks. There is even a hill there, nicknamed Kolchak's. Searched. Nothing was found.
There is a version that Kolchak's gold was flooded in the Irtysh. According to another version, Czech legionnaires pushed 2 wagons with gold into Lake Baikal. In 2013, archaeologist Alexei Tivanenko reported the discovery of 4 ingots at the bottom of Lake Baikal. And that all the rest of the gold lies between the stones and sleepers at the bottom of the lake. Divers even found some parts of the wagons at the bottom of Lake Baikal, but they were released after 1936.
The version put forward by the Russian historian Oleg Budnitsky also deserves attention. He studied archival documents in Stanford, New York and Leeds and came to the conclusion that the gold that fell into the hands of Kolchak was safely deported to banks in England, France and the USA. The historian found documentary evidence that Kolchak sent 195 million rubles in gold equivalent abroad. In exchange for currency metal, Kolchak received loans, acquired weapons and uniforms for his Army. The remaining 43 million were captured by Ataman Semyonov's gangs when they traveled to Vladivostok from Omsk by train, and were also spent on the allowance of their gangs and attracting Mongols-mercenaries to their side.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Russia's gold reserves were one of the largest in the world. In 1918, the supreme ruler of Russia, Alexander Kolchak, became the custodian of 490 tons of gold bars.
Ural gold rush
In the 18th century, gold was mined in Russia mainly in the traditional way - in specialized mines. However, more and more often reports began to reach about finding alluvial gold, which can be recorded in the documents of that era:
“On May 21, 1745, in the local Office of the Main Plants of the Board, the aforementioned schismatic Markov ... saw between the Stanovskoye and Pyshminskaya villages of the road at the top of the light pebbles, like crystal ... Between them he found a tile, like a cream, on which the sign on one side in the nostril is like gold.
People constantly found nuggets or gold dust in the Urals. In the meantime, the “hillockers” were still ravaging the ancient barrows in search of gold in the old fashioned way. Soon the need for this disappeared - in early XIX century, a real gold rush began in Russia, and it got to the point that even gold mines stopped their work - why are they needed when gold is literally under your feet?
By the middle of the 19th century, half of the world's gold was mined in the country - the scale increased many times over. The gold reserves of the Russian Empire also grew - by the First World War it amounted to 1311 tons of gold or 1 billion 695 million rubles, and was one of the largest in the world.
Melting gold reserves
The war greatly reduced Russia's gold reserves. 75 million rubles were sent to England, guaranteeing the payment of war loans. Another 562 million were transported to Canada, then part of the British Empire. Thus, by the time the Bolsheviks seized power and banks, the country's gold reserves amounted to 1 billion 100 million rubles.
However, the Bolsheviks did not get all the money - some of them were prudently evacuated in 1915 from Petrograd to Kazan and other cities in the rear. Thus, only half of the entire gold reserve was concentrated in Kazan.
The Bolsheviks tried to take it out, but they managed to take only 100 boxes - in August 1918, Kazan was captured by the Whites and their Czechoslovak allies. Since a month later, in November 1918, Admiral Kolchak was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia, the gold remaining in Kazan became known as "Kolchak's gold". The Whites took possession of 650 million rubles, which amounted to approximately 490 tons of pure gold in ingots and coins: "Trophies are incalculable, Russia's gold reserves of 650 million have been captured."
The captured gold was partly transported by steamboats to Samara, the capital of the anti-Bolshevik Committee of the members of the Constituent Assembly. From Samara, gold moved to Ufa, and then to Omsk, where it came into direct possession of the Kolchak government.
In 1919, gold was loaded into wagons and sent along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which at that time was controlled by the Czech corps, which had lost confidence in the admiral. When the train with gold arrived at the Nizhneudinsk station, representatives of the Entente forced Admiral Kolchas to renounce the rights of the Supreme Ruler and give the gold reserves to the Czechoslovak formations. Kolchak was handed over to the Social Revolutionaries, who handed him over to the Bolshevik authorities, who immediately shot the admiral. The Czech corps returned 409 million rubles to the Soviets in exchange for a communication to let them out of the country.
But what happened to the remaining 236 million?
Where did Kolchak's gold disappear to?
According to one version, that same ill-fated Czechoslovak corps was the thief of the missing millions. When the Czechs were guarding the train with gold going from Omsk to Irkutsk, they took advantage of their position and stole the money.
In confirmation of this, they usually cite the fact that immediately after the return of the corps to their homeland, the largest Legiabank, a bank founded by Czech legionnaires, is usually cited. However, there is no evidence of this, moreover, the missing gold could not be enough to establish this institution.
Former deputy. Minister of Finance in the government of Kolchak Novitsky accused the Czechs of stealing 63 million rubles, and some German oppositionists assured that the Czechs stole 36 million - all these figures have no source in real historical documents.
Another argument against the Czechs was the fact that Czechoslovakia helped Russian emigrants after civil war- Colossal sums were allocated for support, which, according to conspiracy theorists, were previously stolen from Kolchak's gold. However, according to the most conservative estimates, the amount of subsidies exceeded even the notorious 63 million.
According to another version, Kolchak's gold was hidden by order of the admiral himself. Among the possible places of the treasure is the Maryina Griva lock in the Ob-Yenisei Canal, since a burial of five hundred White Guards was found next to it.
Another place of the alleged location of Kolchak's gold is the Sikhote-Alin mountains, in the caves of which gold bars were allegedly found. There are reports that part of the gold was flooded in the Irtysh, while others believe that the Czech corps pushed part of the wagons with gold into Baikal so that the Reds would not get them. In 2013, archaeologist Aleksey Tivanenko reported that he managed to find Kolchak’s gold by descending on a bathyscaphe to the bottom of Lake Baikal: “We found 4 ingots between the rubble. All this lies between the stones, between the sleepers.
One way or another, according to rumors and legends, the gold of the white admiral has been constantly searched since the 1920s, both by private detachments and by Stalin's search teams. And the search is still going on.
The most plausible version of the missing gold was put forward by the Russian historian Oleg Budnitsky. The notorious 236 million rubles, according to his hypothesis, settled in foreign banks to pay for weapons and ammunition.
The scientist processed many archives located in Stanford, New York and Leeds, and calculated that the Kolchak government sent abroad, to British, French and American banks, about 195 million gold rubles. In exchange for gold, credits were provided to whites, and gold was also deposited to buy weapons from the Americans on credit.
financiers white movement also actively bought dollars to stabilize the financial situation. The remaining money, 43 million rubles, was seized by Ataman Semenov on a train heading from Omsk to Vladivostok, and the gold was spent on the upkeep of the troops, including an attempt to win over the Mongols. Thus, all the allegedly missing Kolchak capital went to cover military expenses and loans from foreign banks.
Kolchak's gold: billions of dollars awaiting discovery
Where are the treasures that people have been searching for centuries kept? What places on earth hide the untold riches of our ancestors? Perhaps one of these places is not far from our house, office, favorite supermarket? Treasures are also found where no one expected to find them. But sometimes the search goes on for centuries. A little more - and the history of the search for the famous "Admiral Kolchak's gold", a significant part of which has not yet been discovered by scientists, special services, or adventurers, will cross the century boundary. According to researchers, the minimum value of treasures not yet found is about 2.5 billion dollars.
Mankind is tirelessly looking for the lost gold of the Incas and the untold riches of sea pirates, the treasuries of Napoleon and Alexander the Great, the grave of Genghis Khan and the treasures of Arab sheikhs... The territory of Russia is also rich in truthful and not very stories about once lost values. However, unlike many of them, the story of Kolchak's gold has an undeniable advantage. It is authentically known that 1600 tons of jewels of tsarist Russia is not a fiction or a guess. These treasures are real. So, one should not exclude the fact that their lost part will one day be found.
Where does Kolchak's gold come from?
In fact, Kolchak's gold is a significant part of the stock of the entire Russian Empire. Judge for yourself: these treasures include about 640 tons of gold, 480 tons of silver, jewelry royal family Romanovs (the cost of which is simply amazing), as well as the unique Siberian Orders, minted in gold and lavishly decorated with precious stones. It is not easy to determine the specific value of historical and cultural relics, but the minimum price of gold and silver that ended up in the hands of the White Guard Admiral Kolchak is $13.5 billion.
So, a little history. In the autumn of 1918, the treasures of tsarist Russia, hidden in Kazan, fell into the hands of the White Guards. They were hastily transferred to Omsk under the care of the head of the movement, Alexander Kolchak. After some spending on military needs, the wealth was divided into three parts. Further - each of these parts develops its own destiny ...
About 720 boxes of gold (which is 37 tons) were stolen by Ataman Semenov, who did not obey either the Whites or the Reds, and was spent by him. True, about 9 tons Semenov shipped to his "patron" - Japan. Another part of Russian gold, after the execution of Kolchak, was sent to Japan by General Rozanov. It is said that during that period of time, the gold reserves of the Land of the Rising Sun increased tenfold! No wonder, because the gold wealth of Russia was the largest in Europe. The money spent by Semyonov and sent to Japan made up the first part of all Kolchak's treasures.
Finding 200 tons of gold...
The second, largest part of the gold reserves of Russia remained under Kolchak and later received the glory of the "golden echelon". At the beginning of 1920, it was decided to transport 29 wagonloads of jewelry worth more than 650 million gold rubles from Omsk to Vladivostok. But the composition did not reach Vladivostok. In the Irkutsk region, the train was stopped by Kolchak's former allies, Czech legionnaires, and handed over to the Bolsheviks. But here's what's interesting: out of the 650 million of the then currency, only 400 million were transferred to the Reds! Yes, about 40 million gold rubles, generous Czech hands "dumped" their homeland. But where did the rest of the wealth go, a good 200 tons?! Lost on the road? Or did the prudent admiral hide some of the treasures? This is where historical accuracy ends. This is where the legends and versions begin...
Now it is difficult to count even the number of attempts to find the "remainder" of the "golden echelon". Some researchers believe that Russia's lost gold reserves "sank" into the banks of Great Britain, France and Japan. Legends are layered on facts, and history is overgrown with so many rumors that it is already very difficult to distinguish between truth and fiction. They are looking for the “Golden Train” near the Siberian station Taiga and at the bottom of Lake Baikal, in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and in the Kazakh city of Petropavlovsk, in Irkutsk and even almost in the Arctic. Interestingly, the real finding of parts of the treasures in all these places is quite possible! But what are these stories based on?
"Scattered" across Siberia?
Version 1. According to one version, in the fall of 1919, 26 boxes of gold (approximately 1.3 tons) were buried at a depth of 2.5 meters near the Siberian station Taiga. The version is plausible, confirmed by a witness and does not contradict the historical course of events. An Estonian who served as a clerk in the White Guards came to the USSR as early as 1931. He hoped to dig up the very 26 boxes that, according to him, were buried here in 1919 by four: himself, the regiment commander and two privates. The area had seriously changed by that time, and the Estonian Purrok could not find anything. As the NKVD officers could not find anything after that. They say they didn't dig deep enough. How to know...
Version 2. Another version says that the gold of the “echelon” has been resting at the bottom of Lake Baikal ever since a detachment of White Guards tried to cross the huge lake on foot in a fierce winter. Several thousand military men then froze to death on the ice, and in the spring they went under water along with the good. It was precisely such testimony that one of the officers who survived that ice campaign, the White Guard Bogdanov, gave. And this version can also be trusted! About 200 kilograms of gold, according to Bogdanov, were then saved and hidden. Already in 1959, the former officer himself was detained by Soviet border guards while trying to cross the border. Bogdanov was killed in pursuit, and about 100 kilograms of gold, hidden almost 40 years ago, were found in the trunk of his jeep.
Is there gold somewhere...
Version 3. Another probable location of Kolchak wealth is the Ob-Yenisei Canal, which was never completed under Nicholas II. There, according to the residents of the Old Believers, there is a mass grave, where at the end of 1919 about 500 White Guards were buried. It is curious that this area is thousands of kilometers away from the path along which the Guard retreated. There is no documentary explanation for the presence of the detachment here. So maybe it was one of the expeditions sent by Kolchak to hide part of the treasure?
Version 4. There is a mention that at the Petropavlovsk station in Kazakhstan, where Kolchak stopped, in a precious convoy, several wagons with gold were mysteriously replaced with the same number of wagons with weapons. Judging by the documents, the weapons were simply bought for the "missing" gold. However, one does not need to be a great mathematician to understand: the cost of gold and received weapons is incommensurable. According to the guesses of the old-timers of Petropavlovsk, the White Guards hid gold in a mass grave, where they buried all the executed. Too suspicious, according to Kazakhstanis, is the fact that the White Guards were generally puzzled by the burial of corpses, and even outside the city. By the way, some coins from the royal gold reserve are today estimated by collectors at several thousand dollars. Remarkably, Peter and Paul numismatists have such coins.
Of course, this is not all of the current versions about the whereabouts of Kolchak's treasures. Someone is looking for a precious cargo in Irkutsk, and someone - in the remote taiga. One way or another, part of the gold reserves of tsarist Russia has not yet been found. However, after almost 90 years, the search is being conducted not only by adventurers, but also by Russian special services. For the most part, they are looking for in the Siberian expanses. And if they are looking, it must be assumed that there is still gold somewhere ...
Big treasures in a small town
But there was also a third part of Kolchak's treasures! Until mid-autumn 1919, this part was kept in Siberian city Tobolsk and contained many valuables, the cost of which experts still simply do not dare to name. What did the cellars of the churches of Tobolsk hide in themselves? First, jewelry, gems and other luxury of the Romanov family. Secondly, precious church relics, including a 570-kilogram silver-gilt reliquary from the relics of the last Russian Saint John of Tobolsk. A little later, unique orders of the Provisional Government of Siberia "joined" this wealth.
Orders, by the way, are of great historical and cultural value. When asked about their value, experts answer unequivocally: they are priceless.
Two orders "Revival of Russia" and "Liberation of Siberia" were issued in 1918 by decree of the Provisional Siberian Government. They were made by the best jewelers in the country, and special ribbons were ordered in Japan! The most noble materials were used for the production of awards of the 1st degree: gold, platinum and precious stones. Judging by the documents, in general, more than 2000 copies were produced. It would seem a lot. Judging by the available documents, they simply did not have time to present new orders to anyone. Kolchak ordered that they be stored along with the rest of the jewels in the cellars of the Tobolsk church. Since the time of the Civil War, no one has ever seen orders.
Who will find what the Chekists did not find?
In October 1919, all valuables from Tobolsk were urgently evacuated to Tomsk along the river. However, the ship did not reach Tomsk - the ship got stuck in the ice not far from little Surgut. What happened next, no one knows. Some believe that officers buried 6 boxes of wealth on the banks of the Ob. Others say - in the taiga. Someone believes that the treasures were drowned in the river, fearing that they would go to the Red Army. There is also evidence that all the expensive church utensils, jewels of the Romanov family and Siberian orders were transferred for safekeeping.
In 1933, the security officers managed to find a serious part of the royal property: a 100-carat diamond brooch, diadems of the queen and princesses, hairpins with diamonds and other valuable jewelry worth 3.27 million gold rubles. But, for example, the favorite pearl necklace of the queen and the golden sword of the heir, decorated with a considerable number of diamonds, were not found. The unique orders "Revival of Russia" and "Liberation of Siberia" were not found either.
Once the researchers settled on the idea that those orders did not exist at all. And already in the early 90s, when many secret documents ceased to be secret, it became clear that the Chekists had been looking for these very orders for a long ten years. So, they are. Scientists are sure that if at least one copy of the order appeared at some auction or in a private collection, it would become a cultural and historical event on a global scale. For Russia, this is filling in some of the "blank spots" in history, but for the one who found the treasure - huge amounts of money. Real wealth. For finding something that can be hidden, in general, anywhere. Even where our unremarkable everyday life goes.
Among the legends about treasures, the secret of the gold reserve, supposedly hidden by Admiral Kolchak during the retreat from the advancing units of the Red Army, stands apart. This story is also shrouded in a veil of mysteries, but it is extremely interesting, since these events took place not so long ago, which significantly increases the likelihood of finding Kolchak's lost gold ...
The government of the young Soviet Republic, at the beginning of 1918, decided to concentrate the gold reserves in one place. The reason was the danger of the advance of German troops. From the areas in which this threat was most likely, gold and valuables began to be evacuated to Kazan. It was the Walls of the Kazan Kremlin that were supposed to protect the gold from the encroachments of both external and internal enemies. There were no final peace agreements with the Germans, therefore, gold was transported from both Petrograd and Moscow to Kazan, thus combining all the reserves in one storage. But the calculation turned out to be erroneous, and all the valuables collected with such difficulty back in the years of the empire turned out to be captured by the White Guard detachments!
If we talk about the very composition of the gold reserves that ended up in the hands of the Whites, then it weighed more than 490 tons and was based on ingots and coins of various states, as well as gold mugs and strips of gold. It is known that Kolchak proclaimed himself the "Supreme Ruler of the Russian State", and in the gold reserve there were specially issued orders of the "Siberian Provisional Government", which were to be awarded to the participants in the events. Two orders, which were called "For the Liberation of Siberia" and "For the Revival of Russia", were indeed issued, and there were also their varieties, that is, various degrees. Until now, no one has seen these orders. They are not present in state museums and private collections.
But this gold did not help the whites in the implementation of their plans to restore the old regime. They retreated under the onslaught of the Red Army and went further and further east. The Czechoslovak Corps captured Kolchak near Irkutsk. The Czechs themselves did not take part in hostilities against Germany, but they were actively engaged in robbery and robbery, which was remembered by both the White Guards and the Red Army. The Czechs got Kolchak's gold, part of which they then transferred to the Reds, but the rest, and a very significant part of it, disappeared without a trace.
After the gold was partially returned to the disposal of the Soviet state, the stock "lost" by more than a third! There were no rare orders in it either. And this became clear when the gold again ended up in the vaults of the state bank in Kazan. It is known that Kolchak actively used the gold reserves to purchase various weapons for his army. That is why significant funds have settled in the banks of the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan. But the version is stubbornly supported that there is a difference between the money that was originally captured by him and those that returned to the treasury, minus expenses. This means that there was another part that could well have been hidden by the admiral for a "rainy" day.
And here, just, begins a vast field for assumptions, opinions, hypotheses and, of course, myths and legends that are always born around such significant events.
Versions of the history of Kolchak's gold.
There are several main versions of the history of Kolchak's gold, and they are very different from each other. According to one version, the lost gold settled in the banks of the United States, Great Britain and Japan, and it is still there. For obvious reasons, it is not possible to confirm or refute this theory, therefore, other versions of what happened can be considered.
According to another version, the Czechoslovak Corps deliberately concealed part of the reserve and secretly transported it to their homeland. To confirm their conjecture, theorists propose to consider the fact that Czechoslovakia experienced an extraordinary economic upsurge in the 1920s and 1930s. But even this version has no direct evidence.
According to the third legend, which excites the minds of researchers and searchers, Kolchak's gold was hidden by decree of the admiral himself, who foresaw the tragic outcome of hostilities. The version is quite plausible, it remains only to find out - where exactly were the innumerable treasures hidden and in what direction should we look for their traces?
The field for reflection is enormous, and in the course of research that has been carried out by various people and in different years, there were many places that could become repositories of the gold reserves hidden by the White Guards during the retreat.
It was likely that the Soviet government was also searching for treasures, but no reliable information on this matter, even during the years of glasnost, was leaked, so we can assume a negative result obtained in this government investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance of gold.
According to one version, Kolchak's gold could not have been hidden at all in those places that are directly associated with hostilities, suggesting the admiral's foresight in choosing a springboard to hide the stock. The Maryina Griva lock, which is located on the Ob-Yenisei Canal, is called such a place. The assumption is rather strange and contradicts normal logic, since the retreat paths of Kolchak's army are far from this point on the map. The fact is that in the vicinity of this place there is a grave in which 500 White Guards are buried, which led the search engines to think that this may have been a special detachment whose task was to hide part of the gold, and this was done on the orders of Kolchak . But on the other hand, it was quite logical to send the gold in a way that did not coincide with the direction of the advance of the troops, which means that it gave a greater chance to complete the secret task.
What happened to the detachment itself, assuming that it really was a combat unit whose task was to deliver and hide valuables? Who could destroy such a numerous and experienced detachment? Versions are put forward that the red partisans could destroy it, but according to historical evidence, active partisan formations did not operate in the vicinity of Krasnaya Griva, which means that this version can be discarded and not taken seriously.
It remains to be assumed that either a rebellion broke out in the unit itself, or liquidators were initially present in it, who were supposed to destroy all unnecessary witnesses, after the main part of the work was completed and Kolchak's gold was securely hidden.
The second version is the most plausible. In favor of the same general concept, there are several more facts that have been established in the course of research on these events. It turns out that the detachment was advancing along the old, paved with wood, Baronsky tract. So, having passed through it, they destroyed it, possibly with two goals - to cover their tracks and make it difficult for the Reds to export gold if their plan is unraveled.
In confirmation of the version, a testimony is given about a blind old man who appeared in 1969 in the area of the death of this detachment. The old man said that he, being one of the fighters of this detachment, had miraculously survived the bloody massacre that the “murderers” staged, and the eyes of the surviving handful of White Guards were gouged out. True, no one heard from him the details regarding Kolchak's gold, so the secret was never revealed, thanks to this living eyewitness and participant in those events.
There are other versions that take us to completely different lands. For example, according to a group of scientists, Kolchak's gold should be sought in the Sikhote-Alin mountains. It turns out that there is evidence that gold bars were found in one of the caves. But no one knows the details of this story, because it was a long time ago, and for a long time there are no people who could accurately indicate this place.
And here is another version proposed by one of the experts studying the bank archives of the very countries where Kolchak's gold was sent. He is sure that you should not look for him and waste time on this. They found that this money was spent and there is no chance now to discover the mythical millions hidden by the admiral in distant years. And this version is also supported by evidence that convincingly testifies in its favor.
But people want to believe that there is still gold and valuables somewhere, I want to hope that someday Kolchak's gold will be found!
According to another version, part of the gold reserves was stolen during its transportation by rail. And this happened, according to the researchers, at the Taiga station. However, numerous searches for the ill-fated gold in the area, using modern search technology, did not give a positive result. They did not find him at the station with the funny name Tyrit, where, as was supposed, Kolchak's gold could also be buried. But even here no traces of the echelon were found.
According to reports, even Stalin once authorized a search “movement”, and then special agents, masquerading as geologists, botanists and history buffs, scoured the alleged places, trying to extract and sell information about the missing gold.
This is how a person works that he does not want to believe that Kolchak's gold may not exist. It does not suit such people that it was really spent on the needs of the white movement. I would like to believe that somewhere there is a golden box of a fabulous price, hidden by the prudent Kolchak.
Well, it is difficult to lean towards a single version today, almost a hundred years later, after these events, which gave rise to many assumptions and rumors. Probably, only the discovery of Kolchak's gold, or vice versa, his undisclosed secret, will be able to confirm and refute the opposite versions. What will happen next with this mystery - time will tell. In the meantime, the search continues!
The search for the so-called gold of Kolchak again reached the state level. But the staff of the Institute Russian history RAS are sure: they are looking in the wrong place ..
Passion for gold
On the eve of the First World War, Imperial Russia ranked third in the world in terms of gold reserves, behind the United States and France. On January 1, 1914, Russia's gold reserves were estimated at 1,695 million rubles. (without taking into account the so-called "gold abroad", which was kept in accounts in foreign banks to ensure settlements and maintain the ruble exchange rate). The gold content of the ruble, according to the Coin Regulations of 1899, was 0.77423 g of pure gold. What was specific gravity ruble against other currencies? For one pound sterling, then the main world currency, they gave 10 rubles, for one dollar - two, the yen, which was not like the current one, was exchanged for the ruble one to one. During the First World War and the Civil War, part of the Russian gold reserve was sold, and part was sent abroad as collateral for loans and for some other purposes.
Oleg Budnitsky Doctor of Historical Sciences, Leading Researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
For almost 90 years, the Soviet and then post-Soviet authorities have been trying to find out the fate of Russian gold that ended up abroad, especially the so-called Kolchak gold, and return it to their homeland, or receive compensation in another way. Claims against the great powers were made by Soviet diplomats back in 1922 at a conference in Genoa. They were presented with a list of financial agents of the Kolchak government abroad, indicating how many pounds sterling, dollars, yen, Mexican dollars (which were in circulation in China and now known as yuan), etc. are in their accounts. The topic of the return of Russian property from abroad became especially popular in the 1990s, during the period of the extremely difficult financial situation of the Russian state. The issue was even considered in the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and the issue of creating a special agency to search for and return lost treasures was seriously considered. Then the excitement subsided a little, but recently the deputies of the Russian State Duma again initiated the issue of returning 500 tons of Kolchak's gold and, of course, about an inquiry on this matter from the FSB, in the archives of which they expected to find the necessary information.
What happened to the gold reserves of the former Russian Empire
Physically, most of Russia's gold - in coins and bars - was in the vaults of the State Bank in St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. After the start of the world war, which lasted, contrary to expectations, not for months, but for years, the journeys of the Russian gold reserves began. Part of the gold was sent to England to support the pound sterling; the allies of Great Britain were credited in this currency, and they were interested in maintaining the purchasing power of the pound. It should be borne in mind that, despite the transition to the gold standard, the ruble was practically not used in settlements in the international arena, while the pound sterling serviced about 80% of world trade. In fact, Russian gold served as collateral for loans, and it was not difficult to assume that it would never return to the country. Borrowings were too large, and it was hard to imagine that Russia would be able to repay the debts on time.
During the war years, £68 million worth of Russian gold was delivered to the storerooms of the Bank of England (of which £8 million was sold), and the Russian gold reserve "lost" significantly.
There was really little chance of returning the gold. Instead of sent gold, the Russian State Bank received interest-free obligations of the British Treasury deposited with the Bank of England. They were to be repaid between January 5, 1919 and December 8, 1921. It is difficult to imagine that Russia would have been able to redeem the “borrowed” gold, even if we assume that history would have gone differently and the Bolshevik coup did not happen. Perhaps, if Russia were a full participant in the peace talks, the question of debt restructuring would also arise. But all these are only imaginary possibilities, the reality turned out to be worse than any fantasy, and the problem of gold and foreign borrowing was “resolved” in a completely unexpected way: the Bolsheviks, who seized power in October 1917, simply refused to pay the debts of the tsarist and Provisional governments.
The gold cash of the State Bank in Russia decreased by February 1917 to 1,096 million rubles. In early February 1917, the gold reserves weighed, in the literal sense of the word, approximately 850 tons. In addition, on the eve of the October Revolution, the Provisional Government sent another 5 million rubles worth of gold to Sweden.
The results of foreign lending to the tsarist and Provisional governments are as follows. The lion's share of the funds was borrowed in England - £ 582.2 million (in terms of gold rubles - 5 billion 506 million 200 thousand). Other creditors of Russia were France - 4 billion 250 million francs (1 billion 593 million 800 thousand gold rubles), the USA - 273 million $ 700 thousand (531 million gold rubles), Japan - 296 million 500 thousand gold yen (287 million 200 thousand gold rubles), Italy - 36 million 100 thousand lire (13 million 500 thousand rubles). In total, Russia's military debts amounted to 7 billion 931 million 700 thousand gold rubles.
Kolchak's gold
The so-called Kolchak gold is a large part of the gold reserves Russian Empire, which was at the disposal of the government of Admiral A. V. Kolchak. The gold stored in Petrograd, in connection with the threat of the capture of the city by German troops, was taken to Kazan back in 1915. Here, for various reasons, later brought gold from the Moscow and Samara offices and the Tambov branch of the State Bank. Thus, by the summer of 1918, more than half of the Russian gold reserves turned out to be in the cellars of the Kazan branch of the State Bank. The Volga region, which seemed to be a deep rear, soon found itself at the epicenter of the Civil War. The Bolsheviks, fearing the seizure of gold by the troops of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), tried to take the gold out, but they managed to send only 100 boxes of gold worth 6 million rubles from Kazan. In early August, Kazan was captured by the Czechoslovak formations and units of the Komuch People's Army under the command of Lieutenant Colonel V. O. Kappel, later one of the most famous commanders of the White troops. After various adventures, on October 13, 1918, gold was delivered to the Omsk branch of the State Bank. A little over a month later (November 18, 1918), Admiral Kolchak was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia, and the name "Kolchak's" forever stuck to the gold that ended up in Omsk without any of his participation.
In total, the admiral had at his disposal gold worth 645 million 410 thousand 870 rubles. Physically, these were 490 tons 448 kg of gold, mainly in coins and ingots, as well as a relatively small number of gold stripes and circles. The composition of the gold reserve, along with the Russian one, included coins of 14 states. Most of all there were German marks - 24,080 thousand (equivalent - 11,202,552 rubles. 27 kopecks), followed by parity were Spanish Alfonso (coins worth 25 pesetas, containing 7.2585 g of pure gold) - 892 750 (8,272,741 rubles 49 kopecks) and English sovereigns - 532 thousand (5,024,116 rubles 42 kopecks). The most exotic against the background of American dollars, French and Belgian francs, Japanese yen, Greek drachmas, etc. looked 36 thousand Chilean condors worth 2,781,459 rubles. 59 kop.
On January 15, 1920, at 21.55, at the Innokentyevskaya station near Irkutsk, the former "Supreme Ruler of Russia" Admiral A. V. Kolchak was handed over by the allies to the authorized representative of the Irkutsk SR-Menshevik Political Center. Together with the admiral, the “Kolchak gold” also ended up in the hands of the Political Center. Soon both the admiral and the gold were at the disposal of the Bolsheviks. Kolchak was shot on the night of February 7, 1920. The gold that fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks totaling 409,625,870 gold rubles, not counting kopecks, was delivered to Kazan. But what happened to the rest of the gold? It is easy to calculate that the difference is almost 236 million rubles in gold.
Golden fever
The problem has spawned an extensive literature, and not only scientific. They are looking for “Kolchak gold” in an abandoned mine, in the cellars of Japanese, British, American banks, they attribute the theft of gold to Czechoslovak legionnaires and Japanese militarists, novels about Kolchak gold were published in Russia and Great Britain, movies, dozens, if not hundreds of articles. Perhaps not a single story about Admiral Kolchak in the media is complete without mentioning the mystery of Kolchak's gold. And really: what could be more fascinating than the story of the lost treasures?
And what about our brother, the historian? The problem was that Russian (and indeed any other) historians never had all the documents at their disposal to restore the history of Kolchak's gold. The latest information about the fate of the proceeds from sales and the money received as a result of loans secured by gold said that at the end of December 1919, by order of the last Minister of Finance of the Kolchak government, P. A. Buryshkin, the money was transferred to the accounts of Russian financial agents abroad. When in 1945 the émigré Prague Archive fell into the hands of the Soviet secret services and archivists, they found information about anything but money. The fact is that Russian diplomats and financial agents were the last to transfer documents on financial transactions to archives, and to archives located as far as possible from Moscow. And some are like former ambassador in Paris, Vasily Maklakov - kept them with him until his death.
Thus, the documents that make it possible to understand what happened to Kolchak's gold, more precisely, the money received from its sales and "gold loans", turned out to be dispersed between Russian, American (Hoover Archive in California and Bakhmetev Archive in New York) and British (Russian archives in Leeds) archives. The author of these lines managed to work in all these archives and recreate the history of the "movement of money" and gold.
Where's the money?
In total, according to our calculations, Kolchak's financiers sent gold to the amount of about 195 million gold rubles abroad. Part of the gold - in the amount of $ 35,186,333 (money received in francs, pounds sterling and yen) was sold from May to September 1919 to French, Japanese and British banks. Most of it was deposited in Japanese, British, American banks as collateral for loans. The largest loan - for 75 million gold rubles - was provided jointly by the British bank Baring Brothers and the American Kidder, Peabody and Co. The British part of the loan was received in pounds sterling (£3 million), the American part in dollars ($22.5 million). On the security of gold, a loan was also received from Japanese banks in the amount of almost 30 million yen (at that time, the gold ruble and the yen were quoted equally). Gold was also deposited for the purchase on credit of rifles from the American government, from the Remington company, Colt machine guns from the Morlinrockwell company. One of the golden echelons, heading from Omsk to Vladivostok, was captured by ataman G. M. Semenov. The train contained gold worth 43,557,744 rubles. It was spent by the ataman on the maintenance of his troops, and for such exotic purposes as an attempt to enlist the Mongols in the fight against the 3rd International. For this, Baron R.F. Ungern, who went to Mongolia, was allocated 7 million rubles by the ataman.
The lion's share of the money received by the government of Admiral Kolchak, as well as "inherited" by his successors - Generals A. I. Denikin and P. N. Wrangel - went to the purchase of weapons, ammunition and uniforms. Huge amount of money - more than $4 million - went to order banknotes in the United States. The financiers of the White movement sought to stabilize the circulation of money, for which reliable banknotes. Ultimately, the bills produced by the American Bank Note Company had to be burned in order to avoid paying storage fees. So, literally, money was wasted.
Is there gold somewhere abroad that Russia can claim? I am afraid it is not. Agreements with foreign banks were drawn up in such a way that in case of untimely repayment of the debt, gold became their property. Part of the gold was sold by Russian financial agents in order to pay off loans. The last sale was made by a Russian financial agent in the United States, Sergei Antonovich Uget, in the spring of 1921. After the final settlement with the Remington company, part of the gold deposit was released. The gold was sold to the Japanese Yokohama Hurry Bank for the equivalent of $500,000. It is curious that the diplomats intended to save this amount for the future government of post-Bolshevik Russia. And in order to better hide the money from pesky creditors, they invested in shares and bills of a London bank (London and Eastern Trade Bank). It was formally a British bank, but with Russian capital, created by Russian entrepreneurs who found themselves in exile. And the trustee, to whom the shares were issued, was ... Gustav Nobel, the nephew of "that same" Nobel. The bank's shares were sold after the Second World War, and the proceeds went to help Russian refugees, mainly in France.
Kolchak's gold, more precisely, the money received for it, was destined for an unexpectedly long life after the end of the Civil War. Responsibility for them was assumed by Russian diplomats, who created the Council of Russian Ambassadors in Paris and the Financial Council attached to it. With this money, Wrangel's army was resettled in the Balkans, the money went to help the Russian emigration. The brook became shallow, but dried up only at the end of the 1950s. I was able to trace the history of "Kolchak" money to 1957, when the last member of the Council of Ambassadors V. A. Maklakov died.
This story is extremely intriguing. My book “Money of the Russian Emigration: Kolchak's Gold. 1918-1957", published a year ago by the publishing house "New Literary Review". The information given in it allows us to put an end to the debate that has been going on for almost 90 years about the fate of Kolchak's gold.
However, as it turned out, not all people in our country read books ... Or bother themselves with inquiries on historical problems, for example, to such a fairly well-known institution as the Academy of Sciences.
Other gold: Germany
We will also tell, in order to "close the topic" about the fate of the gold that ended up in the vaults of various foreign banks, regardless of the operations of Kolchak's financiers. This issue is inextricably linked with the problem of settling Russia's pre-revolutionary debts. Recall that the Russian government had to pay off wartime loans within a period of three to five years. However, another government - the Soviet one - refused to pay at all for the obligations of the previous one, which decided the fate of the gold sent during the First World War to the vaults of the Bank of England. It has become his property. The refusal of the Soviet government to pay the debt obligations of the tsarist and Provisional governments determined the fate of another part of the Russian gold reserves - the so-called Brest-Litovsk gold (more than 120 million gold rubles), transferred by the Bolshevik government of Germany under the terms of the Russian-German financial agreement of August 27, 1918 year and found itself after the surrender of Germany in France. It remained there forever as compensation for debts annulled by the Soviet government.
Other gold: Sweden
On the eve of the October Revolution, gold in the amount of 4 million 850 thousand rubles was sent to Sweden to secure a loan of 30 million Swedish crowns. (13.15 million SEK). Sweden was a neutral country, and formally the loan was opened to a consortium of Russian private banks headed by the Azov-Don. Later, in the 1930s, the government of Sweden, which admitted that the Azov-Don Bank was a "dummy person" and the gold was state-owned, offered the Soviet government, in exchange for its waiver of claims for a gold deposit, to transfer 5.5 million crowns This was the remainder of the deposit minus the debts of the Russian government to the Swedish Red Cross and the state railways of Sweden for wartime transportation, as well as the debts of Russian commercial banks. The Soviet government agreed to the proposed terms, and the money entered the current account of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR on July 2, 1933.
Other Gold: UK
The problem of Russian debts to England was settled only in 1986 by Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher. The Soviet and British governments agreed to give up mutual claims, while the amounts kept in the accounts of the Baring Brothers bank since 1918 were to be used to satisfy the claims of the owners of the obligations of the imperial government, both individuals and companies. Compensation to holders of Russian bonds was paid at the rate of ten percent of the face value. The property lost as a result of the Bolshevik revolution was also subject to compensation. The Baring brothers' bank was the only British bank that refused to hand over to the treasury the money kept in the accounts of Russian organizations. In 1918, these amounts amounted to about £ 4 million 300 thousand. By 1986, they reached, taking into account the accrued interest, £ 46 million.
Price Waterhouse was assigned to deal with the claims. The pedantry of the British was comparable to that of the Germans. Thus, a claim was made for the loss of luggage, which contained four boxes of sardines, three unused tickets for a cycle of musical concerts and a subscription to the opera. The largest payment - £900 thousand - was made to one company in exchange for several hundred boxes of Russian bonds, the smallest - £3.63 - in compensation for a deposit lost in one of the banks of Petrograd in the amount of 127 rubles.
Undoubtedly, the agreement on the "zero option" on mutual claims was a major achievement of Soviet diplomacy. After all, the debts of the tsarist and Provisional governments many times exceeded the value of the gold that had once been sent to the vaults of the Bank of England.
Other gold: France
The situation with France was more complicated. There were more than 316 thousand holders of more than 3.76 million debt obligations of the tsarist time in the country. Attempts to resolve the problem were made several times back in Soviet times. It was already resolved in the post-Soviet period, when Russia returned to a “decent society” and, in accordance with the norms of behavior adopted in it, paid off its debts. On November 26, 1996, the Russian and French governments signed a memorandum of understanding, according to which the Russian side undertook to pay $400 million to the French government "as a complete and final settlement of mutual claims between the two countries that arose before May 9, 1945." On May 27, 1997, in Paris, the parties signed an intergovernmental agreement "on the final settlement of mutual financial and property claims that arose before May 9, 1945." $400 million was paid in eight semi-annual installments, the last of which was made in August 2000.
Again, this was an undeniable success for Russian diplomats and financiers. They managed to reduce the amount of claims by two and a half times and shift the responsibility for satisfying the claims of investors (more precisely, their descendants) to the French government. That, in turn, warned the owners of bonds of the tsarist time that none of them could claim an amount exceeding 70 thousand francs (about $ 9.6 thousand). Of course, this was many times, if not ten times less than what the yellowed papers inherited from grandparents should have actually cost. Whose francs once contributed to the industrialization of Russia.
Of course, the terms of the agreement did not delight the thousands of descendants of small investors. The “Association of holders of royal loans” is still trying to present claims to the French government, but the issue has been finally resolved. Apparently, the French government, agreeing to the signing of an agreement that was not the most beneficial for its own citizens, sought, firstly, to remove obstacles to economic cooperation between the two countries, and secondly, it was aware of the futility of hopes for a larger amount. Few people in the mid-1990s could have foreseen the skyrocketing energy prices, just as Russia would early XXI century will seek not to delay the payment of its external debts, but, on the contrary, to pay them off ahead of schedule.
